Technical Difficulty
by Eyeliner-Vampire
Summary: He'd done it. Noll finally convinced Martin to give him his first solo case – but there is still one valuable lesson he has yet to learn. Written for Atalieaoi in the GH Exchange.


Written for Atalieaoi in the GH Exchange.

* * *

Call me if you need help.

Martin's words filtered back to Noll's brain. At the time they had felt like a safe haven, a back-up plan, but now it sounded like a taunt. Noll shook his head. He stuck by his decision. There was no need for a whole crew of people to take on such a simple case, they would just get in the way. All Noll need was Gene. Gene who was nowhere to be seen, Gene who had left Noll to setup the control room alone.

Noll sat on the pocked wooden floor, picking at the nest of tangled wires. The rest of the room was filled with boxes of equipment; cameras, microphones, EMF readers, everything an investigator would need – if only he could get the damn wires.

He yanked the AV cable he'd spent the last some-odd minutes detangling, and it came free. Finally. He rose to his feet, a slow process given his legs had fallen asleep. Every movement was pins and needles as he coaxed his legs to move.

Braving a few steps to the pile of sleek black cases, he pulled a camera free from its padding — and swore. On closer inspection, it wasn't the AV cable at all, but a microphone adapter just pretending.

"Gene!" Noll snarled because he needed something to yell at, "Where are—"

"Tea?"

Noll spun on his heel. Gene was making his way around the metal skeleton that should have been shelving, balancing two steaming cups.

Noll wagged the cable at him, accusingly. "Where have you been?"

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Gene said setting one cup precariously on a stack of boxes. "I thought you might want…"

The floor creaked. Both boys glanced sideways at the door. The sound had come from somewhere outside the room, but they were supposed alone in the manor.

"Did you hear—" He didn't get to finished as the sound of wood slamming deafened him. Creaking wood, metal clanging, the manor felt as if it were trembling beneath them.

It was early for activity to be starting, but neither of them waited. Noll bolted for the kitchen and Gene for the foyer.

In the kitchen, cabinets were slamming open and shut of their own accord. Drawers were pulled from their places, silverware scattered over the floor. As Noll watched, the long wooden table trembled and shifted sideways as if pushed. Across the manor, the foyer was a cacophony of sound. It was a jarring mix of stomping and screeching, an argument in full force. Gene struggled to pick out individual words or meaning, and then it was over.

The cabinets stilled, the blinds rocked back and forth but they no longer flipped around as if controlled by some unseen force. In the foyer, the thundering of footsteps fell away.

"That was… unsettling." Noll hummed to himself. What kind of spirit could do something like this? It was unlike anything Noll had seen on other cases. He ran a hand over one of the marble smooth counters. Images sprang to mind; a woman baking, a boy sitting, legs swinging, up on the counter. Noll dismissed them.

They met back in the hall where Gene described what he'd heard.

"It was like screaming, but more intelligible?" He questioned himself. "Definitely an argument."

Not only was the activity strong, but it was in two places simultaneously? Noll motioned to the base. "We need to get the cameras up."

And so they did. Together they set up two cameras, one in the foyer and one in the kitchen, and finally managed to untangle the cables. By the time they were finished it was nightfall.

"I don't think that's a job for two people," Gene complained, fanning his sweaty face.

Noll didn't answer. He was listening for any creaking or clanging or anything out of place, but the manor was quiet. And it remained quiet well into the night. It was as if they both imagined the chaos of only a few hours ago. In fact, if the silverware weren't still scattered all over the kitchen floor, Noll would have seriously questioned himself.

Sometime in the early morning, when the sky was a pleasant pink color, Gene suggested one of them should sleep.

"You go," Noll said. His eyes were beginning to hurt from looking at the screens all night, but he wasn't quite ready to sleep yet.

"I slept on the ride out here," Gene insisted, "you look like you're about to pass out anyway and I'd rather you not anything knock over."

In the end, Noll couldn't refuse, especially once he started yawning. He draped himself over the love seat that was stuck in the back of the room with only his jacket for a blanket.

He had only just managed to fall asleep when Gene called his name.

"Noll? I think there's something wrong with the cameras."

Noll groaned. He rolled off the couch with as much elegance as a newborn deer and squinted at the screens. There was no reason to, there was nothing on them. He starred down at a completely black screen for a full minute before he said, "Did the power go out?"

"The lights are still on,"

Noll rubbed his eyes. "Is the night vision on?"

"They're night vision cameras, Noll."

Noll waved a hand. He wouldn't have put it past his brother to forget. "Have you checked the battery?"

Gene snapped his fingers and bolted from the room. Noll padded after him, stumbling into the kitchen as Gene flicked on the light. Blinded, Noll could only listen to the click of plastic as Gene tried the camera's power button.

"The battery's dead."

"You're welcome," Noll yawned. At least it wasn't something worse.

"Where did you put the spares?"

"In the duffel…bag…" Noll closed his eyes, coaxing the answer from his tired mind. He could see the battery packs, sitting by the door of his office in a blue duffel bag. Forgotten. Damn it.

Call me if you need me. Noll pushed the words out of his mind so violently, his head ached.

Gene said, "We don't have them, do we?"

Neither of the boys needed to point out that, without them, they had no case. They might just as well have been two teenagers sleeping overnight in a haunted manor. But Noll would be damned if he stopped here.

He turned and started down the hall. "We don't need them," he said, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if he was talking about the batteries, or Martin.

.

.

.

Gene wasn't an exorcist. He wasn't any kind of religious figurehead with some uncanny ability to banish ghosts. He didn't dress up, didn't pray to the other side, and he certainly didn't have a crystal ball, but he was still a medium, and sometimes that was all that was needed. Other times, it was all they had. This was one of those times.

Without any cameras, they had no means of continuing the investigation, but there was something they could do. Researching the spirits in a location and gathering evidence was only one of an investigator's tasks. The other was making sure the residence was safe, which often meant getting rid of the spirit.

Gene stood in the center of the foyer, hands in his pockets and eyes closed. Noll stood by the front door, arms crossed, watching his brother carefully. They had already tried the kitchen to no avail. If they didn't get anything now, Noll didn't know what to do.

Gene sighed and shook his head. "I don't hear anything. I don't see anything."

"I thought you were a medium."

"And I thought you were an asshole." Gene said, but his voice was different, deeper and heavily accented. He shrugged. "Guess we're both right."

Noll leaned forward. "Gene?"

Gene didn't respond. Eyes still closed, he swayed dangerously. Then, voice normal again, he said, "You are no longer of this plane, spirit. Please cross over."

A moment of silence passed, and Noll thought that was it. The spirit was gone. The morning sun shone golden through the windows, bright and light and it must have been over. Boy, was he wrong.

Noll's knees buckled under him as the floor trembled. The air whipped and whistled around them, screeching higher and higher until they formed words Noll couldn't understand. Gene clamped his hands over his ears, the floor rippling around him. What felt like hours but must have been only seconds later, it all stopped. Noll was bleeding from the elbow, having scrapped it across the floor when he fell. Gene was wide eyed and shaking.

"What the hell was that?" Noll whispered, afraid if he spoke any louder, the screaming would return.

Gene shook his head.

.

.

.

"What are we gonna do?"

Noll sighed. Back at base, he had managed to get the bleeding to stop, but his head still throbbed, and Gene was still pale. Rubbing his forehead with one hand, he dug in his pocket with the other. "We could call Martin… Lin probably has a hirogata somewhere. It would be the easiest way to…" he drifted off.

Call me if you need me, that's what Martin had said. But what did that mean? Did he expect Noll to call him, or was it a test to see if they could make it on their own?

Gene leaned his elbows on his knees, weary. "We could…"

Noll flipped his phone open. "We should."

"We should?" Gene mimicked. "Are you sure? You're not giving up yet, are you?"

"I'm not giving up," Noll was already dialing the familiar number. "But we can't do this by ourselves."

It wasn't a test, meant to trick them. They were words of advice from an expert in the field and Noll realized that now. And he was going to take them.

The phone rang twice before the line connected in a burst of static.

"Martin?" Noll paused, waited for the static to clear. "We need help."

"Oh?" On the other side, Martin chuckled, "Well it's about time."


End file.
